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Gen Y have got it right, according to a survey which shows major companies no longer value long service by their workers.

The poll of 32 national and international firms found that when defining a high-performing worker, 69 per cent rated "length of service" as least important or not even applicable.

Jeremy Tipper, business development director of recruitment firm Alexander Mann Solutions, said this revealed a dramatic shift in the way big businesses viewed their best workers and what they expected from them.

"If you turn the clock back 10 or 15 years, length of service would have been seen as a significant attribute of high performance," Mr Tipper told AAP on Tuesday.

"The reason for that is they had a great deal of knowledge ... about the organisation and a good understanding of what's happening in the marketplace.

"Today, because information is so much more freely available because of technology, that 'information is power' probably doesn't exist to the same extent."

Mr Tipper said the new breed of workers was less "risk averse" - they were more prepared to change jobs and they were more aware of the value and portability of their skills.

The change was more evident in less traditional business sectors such as IT and knowledge-based industries, he said.

The number of companies offering employment on a project-by-project basis would grow, Mr Tipper predicted, as highly skilled workers would increasingly seek out more flexible employment arrangements.

"The perspective of Gen Y is you are much better off with a variety of different experiences ... I think, to a large extent, they have got it right," Mr Tipper said.

"You get a lot more interest as a result of moving around different organisations than you might do by staying with one.

"But that fickleness only goes so far, because at some point you'll make a bad decision when actually you didn't know what was good for you."

Generation Y are generally defined as those born from about 1980 through to the mid 1990s, usually children of baby boomers.

Alexander Mann Solutions conducted the poll over two months this year, and the results are compiled in the Alexander Mann Solutions High Performer Report.

Mr Tipper spoke at the Australasian Talent Conference in Sydney on Tuesday. The full report is to be released later this month.

AAP